A search for a duchess

...despite his scandalous secret!

Oliver, Duke of Theakstone, needs a duchess, but who will accept his secret illegitimate child? He invites several eligible ladies to his estate to assess their suitability, including infuriating beauty Miss Sofia Underwood. Oliver is a master of cool practicality, so he’s hopeful when he sees the connection between Sofia and his daughter. What scares him is there’s nothing cool or practical about his attraction to Sofia!

ANNIE BURROWS has been writing Regency romances for Mills & Boon since 2007. Her books have charmed readers worldwide, having been translated into nineteen different languages, and some have gone on to win the coveted Reviewers’ Choice award from CataRomance. For more information, or to contact the author, please visit annie-burrows.co.uk, or you can find her on Facebook at facebook.com/AnnieBurrowsUK.

Also by Annie Burrows

Lord Havelock’s List

A Mistress for Major Bartlett

The Captain’s Christmas Bride

In Bed with the Duke

Once Upon a Regency Christmas

The Debutante’s Daring Proposal

Brides for Bachelors miniseries

The Major Meets His Match

The Marquess Tames His Bride

The Captain Claims His Lady

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

A Duke in Need of a Wife

Annie Burrows

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08868-8

A DUKE IN NEED OF A WIFE

© 2019 Annie Burrows

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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I’d like to give a special mention to Poppy,

who inspired the creation of Snowball.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One
July 1814

It all happened so fast.

One moment, everyone was oohing and aahing at the cascade of red and gold sparks bursting into the night sky. The next, they were screaming and running as a sheet of flame erupted with a sound that put Sofia in mind of a fusillade of cannon.

Worse still, the bigger people were shoving the smaller, slower-moving ones out of their way. In the panic, a tall man elbowed Sofia right in her eye as he spun away from the exploding fireworks. A split second later someone else deliberately shoved her aside. What with the blow to the face, the shove and the surge of running people, Sofia felt herself beginning to lose her footing.

Already scared, Sofia now faced the terrifying prospect of being trampled underfoot. Fortunately, the man who’d shoved her out of his way had shoved her in the direction of a clump of sturdy-looking bushes. All Sofia had to do was alter her topple into a deliberate dive and she ended up underneath them, rather than under the pounding feet of the fleeing mob.

Her heart was pounding, her limbs were shaking, but she was safe—if a bit bruised and grubby. Still, for once she’d have a jolly good excuse for returning to her aunt and uncle covered in leaves and mud. For once, she could lay the blame squarely at the feet of the beast who’d pushed her out of his way, rather than having to confess that she’d had to dig her dog out of a rabbit burrow, or rescue her from a boggy patch of meadow, or one of the many other mishaps which so regularly seemed to befall her when exploring Uncle Ned’s estates.

It took a remarkably short time for the massive crowd which had gathered to watch the fireworks display to disperse.

Still unsure that it would be safe to emerge from her cover, Sofia gingerly raised herself on one elbow and peered out from under the lower branches to see what was going on.

Uncle Ned had bought the most expensive tickets to this event which Burslem Bay’s town council had put on to celebrate the peace with France. It had not only included the price of supper, but also the right to stand halfway up the castle mound, ensuring the best view of the fireworks. It meant that even from beneath the bushes, Sofia could still clearly see that the scaffolding on which the fireworks display had been mounted was now well ablaze.

She could also hear someone screaming. She raised herself a bit further and saw, to her horror, right beneath the flaming scaffolding, in the area where the servants and shopkeepers had been standing, a woman with her skirts on fire.

A woman all on her own, desperately swatting at the flames, which were now licking up her sleeves. Sofia had seen something similar in her childhood, when a stray rocket had set a magazine, as well as the men nearest to it, ablaze, so she knew that the woman ought to lie on the ground and roll, not leap about the way she was doing. But this was England in peacetime, not a fortress on high alert. Which meant she could well be the only person here who knew what needed doing.

So Sofia wriggled out from under the shrubbery and began running back down the slope as fast as she could, desperately hoping she’d be strong enough to wrestle the panicked woman to the ground and extinguish the flames before it was too late. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed two men also running in the same direction—two of the waiters who’d served at supper, to judge from the white shirts they wore, with blue sashes wrapped round their waists. They reached the burning woman first. One of them pushed her to the ground. The other one, who was slightly behind him, and who’d clearly had the presence of mind to grab a champagne bucket on his way, upended the contents over the unfortunate woman, putting out most of the flames at once.

By the time Sofia got there, the waiters had extinguished all the flames and were standing back, breathing heavily and looking a bit sick at the state of the poor woman who lay there moaning and shaking.

Most of one side of her dress had gone and her hair looked as though it, too, had been singed. Sofia wasn’t surprised the woman was trembling. Her clothing had caught fire, she’d been flung to the ground by one burly man and then had ice-cold water thrown over her by another. She’d felt pretty shaky herself when she’d been lying on the ground, after two men had treated her rather roughly. And her gown had only been ripped a bit. It hadn’t melted away, leaving her legs exposed.

How she wished there was something she could do for the poor woman.

Well, actually, there was. She tore at the fastening of her cloak, and, falling to her knees beside the woman, flung it over her body. It might not be able to stop the tremors racking the poor creature, but at least it would prevent the two men from being able to look at her exposed limbs.

‘Don’t just stand there staring,’ she shouted at them. ‘This woman needs medical attention! One of you run and fetch a doctor!’

The two men exchanged a glance.

‘I say...’ one of them began to protest.

But the other one, who was still holding the empty ice bucket, held up his free hand as though to silence his colleague.

‘She’s right, Gil. Go and fetch Dr Cochrane.’

As the first waiter hurried off, the other one tossed the ice bucket aside and stepped closer. By the flickering light of the blazing scaffolding, Sofia noted heavy, straight dark brows and a beak of a nose, which gave him a harsh appearance.

‘You can leave her now,’ he snarled at her.

Snarled? What right had he to snarl at her? And why was he glaring so ferociously?

‘The doctor will attend her.’

‘When he gets here,’ she retorted, ‘I dare say he will. But until then, I prefer to stay with her.’ She took hold of the injured woman’s hand, to offer the poor creature what meagre comfort she could.

‘You look to me,’ said the waiter with the ferocious eyebrows, ‘as though you could do with medical attention yourself.’

At that, Sofia realised that her eye socket throbbed at the point where it had encountered the tall man’s elbow. And that she had scratches up her arms from diving under the bushes.

‘And you really ought not to have removed your cloak.’ As his eyes made a swift perusal over her person, she recalled thinking that muslin was not the best of fabrics to wear when diving under bushes. She was thankful that she’d have an acceptable excuse to give Aunt Agnes for ruining yet another gown.

‘Yes, that’s probably true,’ she admitted when the waiter’s eyes lingered over the portion of her tattered skirt through which her knee was poking, ‘but right this minute, I believe this lady needs it more than I do.’

‘She is not a lady,’ he said, somewhat pedantically to her way of thinking.

‘What does her station in life have to do with anything? She is clearly hurt very badly and needs both a doctor and a cloak to cover her far more than I do.’

The waiter raised one of his brows, just a fraction.

‘That is a very...compassionate thing to say. Nevertheless, I am sure there are people looking for you, people who will be concerned about your welfare. You ought not to be wandering about alone, in the dark.’

‘I am not wandering about alone. I am kneeling on the ground, tending to a woman who has been badly hurt. And I intend to stay with her until there is some other female who can take my place.’

As though in gratitude, the injured woman gave Sofia’s hand a rather shaky squeeze.

‘Oh, how I wish I could just take you home with me and nurse you myself,’ Sofia said apologetically. ‘It must be awful to be in this state and reliant on strangers.’ For the second time that night, Sofia felt the unpleasant sensation of childhood memories surging to the forefront of her mind. Only this time it was of the days following her papa’s death, when she’d been passed from one harassed officer to another before finally being loaded on to a ship returning to England. Though none of those men had meant to be unkind, nor had any of them really had much idea how to handle a fellow officer’s orphaned daughter.

‘You are a stranger to her yourself,’ put in the waiter, who was beginning to really annoy her.

‘Yes,’ she shot back at him, ‘but at least I am a woman!’

‘Look, miss...’

‘Underwood,’ she supplied automatically.

‘Miss Underwood,’ he said. ‘I promise you that I will ensure this woman has the best possible care. And that as soon as is practical, I will procure a female to tend to her.’

‘Yes, that’s all very well, but until then...’

‘And to set your mind at rest, I will also send word of her progress. If you will allow me to know how I may contact you?’

Sofia bit down on her lower lip. The most annoying thing about the waiter was that he was correct. Her aunt and uncle would be getting worried about her once they discovered she’d become separated from them during that stampede. And there wasn’t anything more she could do for the injured woman, not really.

‘Yes. Very well. We have taken lodgings on Marine View. In Theakstone Crescent.’

The man appeared a little taken aback. He took a breath as though to say something, but never got the chance. Because Uncle Ned came bustling up.

‘Sofia! What the devil do you think you are playing at? Your aunt is worried sick about you! Get up off the ground and come here this instant!’

She got up. And under cover of brushing some of the leaves and ash from her skirts, she sidled closer to the waiter. ‘I have a little money of my own,’ she said softly. ‘I would gladly contribute towards the cost of nursing her, if that would help.’

‘Sofia!’ Uncle Ned grabbed her arm and pulled her to a respectable distance from the waiter. ‘Where is your cloak?’

She pointed to the injured woman.

‘Great heavens above,’ groaned Uncle Ned, rolling his eyes for good measure. Sofia winced, imagining the scene there was going to be when she explained how she’d disposed of a garment she’d only borrowed from her cousin Betty on the understanding she would take the greatest care of it.

Uncle Ned could clearly imagine it, too, for, as he dragged her away from the scene, he muttered, ‘Have you no sense?’

* * *

Oliver clenched his fists as he watched the man clamp one hand round Miss Underwood’s upper arm and drag her away as though he’d just caught her committing some crime. If there was one thing he detested, it was men who used their superior strength against females. Particularly females of their own family.

If it wasn’t for the even more badly injured woman lying right at his feet, he’d have gone after Miss Underwood and given her uncle a piece of his mind. Only there was an injured woman lying at his feet. A woman whose need outweighed that of the one who’d been able to walk away from the catastrophic ending to the evening.

He bent his gaze in her direction. She’d stopped moaning. Was that a good sign, or a bad one? If only he knew what to do, the way Miss Underwood had instinctively seemed to know.

She had knelt down and held the burned woman’s hand.

But then, Miss Underwood was female. As he’d become all too aware when her knee had peeped out at him through a rent in her skirt at that critical moment.

It would probably not prove soothing if he were to kneel down and take hold of the burnt woman’s hand. But he had to do something. He gazed round, through the flickering, reddish shadows at the milling crowds. Where was that damned doctor? What was taking Gil so long?

The woman suddenly gave a convulsive shudder.

‘The doctor will be here soon, Miss... Mrs...’ He broke off, grinding his teeth. He hadn’t even thought to ask her name.

‘Pagett,’ the woman croaked.

‘Pagett,’ he repeated, in what he hoped was a reassuring sort of way.

She moaned again.

‘Be brave,’ he said. ‘Just a little longer and the doctor will...’

‘That’s just it,’ she whimpered. ‘I can’t afford no doctor. Not to pay for treatment of this...’ she moved her legs, waved her arms vaguely ‘...not this much.’

And Miss Underwood had thought of that, as well.

‘You must not worry about that,’ he told Mrs Pagett. ‘I will make sure all your bills for treatment are met. And that you have the nursing you need, for as long as you need it.’

‘You?’ She frowned up at him. ‘Why should you do that?’

‘Because it is my duty. And that of the committee who organised tonight’s events to take care of you. And,’ he added as an afterthought, ‘your family, should you be unable to work to support them for any length of time.’

She rolled her head from side to side. ‘It’s all very well you saying that now. But who’s going to listen to what you have to say?’

‘Everyone,’ he said with perfect assurance. ‘Because I am the head of the committee.’

‘You are?’ She gazed up at him in disbelief.

‘Yes,’ he assured her. ‘I am the Duke of Theakstone.’

Chapter Two

‘And you say the man in question is Viscount Norborough,’ said Oliver. ‘You are certain of that?’

Perceval, his secretary, opened the document case he’d brought with him into the study, riffled through the contents and withdrew a slim ledger.

‘The tenants of Number Six Theakstone Crescent,’ he said, holding out the relevant entry so that Oliver could see it, ‘are Lord and Lady Norborough, their niece, Miss Underwood, sundry servants and a dog. They took up tenancy on June the first on a three-month lease.’

Oliver leaned back in his chair, frowning as he recalled the rough way the uncle had manhandled his pretty young niece away from the scene.

He started tapping one finger on the arm of his chair. He should have insisted she stay put, until she’d received medical attention.

But then Dr Cochrane had been too busy with Mrs Pagett to have spared time for Miss Underwood.

And he’d heard mention of an aunt. That lady had probably done all that was necessary for the minor cuts and bruises Miss Underwood had sustained.

Wouldn’t she?

‘What do we know of these Norboroughs, Perceval?’

‘Their principal estate lies in Derbyshire. Lady Norborough is the oldest sister of the Earl of Tadcaster. The—’

‘No, no, I didn’t mean that. I mean, what of their character? Their habits? Their history?’

‘I shall look into it, Your Grace,’ said Perceval smoothly.

It wasn’t good enough. Oh, Perceval would dig and dig until he’d unearthed every last secret the couple might ever have attempted to conceal. But it would take time. And Miss Underwood might be suffering who knew what right now.

‘It need not be a priority, Perceval. You have your hands full with the investigation into the cause of last night’s accident.’

They’d already visited the scene of the fire, hoping that in daylight they would be able to determine what had caused the painstakingly constructed display to explode.

Though he knew nothing of fuses or gunpowder, the men who’d set it all up certainly did and were all equally puzzled by how it could have gone so spectacularly wrong.

‘No evidence left,’ one of them had said gloomily. ‘Ashes, is all.’

‘Evidence?’ He’d pounced on that word, and all that it implied, with a frisson of disquiet. ‘Are you saying you think some crime took place here?’

‘Sabotage,’ one of the other workmen had stated. ‘Must have been.’

‘Or carelessness,’ Perceval had muttered, so that nobody but Oliver could possibly have heard. ‘Or drunkenness. Or incompetence.’

Well, whatever the cause, Perceval would get to the bottom of it.

‘In the meantime,’ he decided, ‘I shall call upon Miss Underwood.’ He could not rest easy until he’d seen with his own eyes that she had suffered no lasting ill effects from the incident. And it wasn’t because she was pretty, as far as he’d been able to judge from the glow of the burning scaffolding. It was because of her bravery in running towards a woman whose clothes had caught fire, when everyone else had been fleeing in the most cowardly, selfish manner. And the compassion she’d shown in kneeling down and holding the burned woman’s hand. And her disregard for the woman’s social station when she’d so selflessly donated her own cloak to conceal Mrs Pagett’s limbs, even though doing so had meant he’d been able to catch a glimpse of a shapely lower leg through her own ripped skirts.

Perceval tucked the ledger back in his folder and extracted Oliver’s diary. ‘You are attending an extraordinary meeting of the Committee to Celebrate the Peace with France, tomorrow at five.’

‘And Marine View is on my way. Efficient as ever, Perceval. I need only set out half an hour sooner.’

‘I shall make a note of it, Your Grace,’ said Perceval, licking the end of his pencil.

* * *

‘The Duke of Theakstone,’ Babbage intoned from the doorway.

‘Duke of Theakstone? Are you sure?’ Aunt Agnes frowned at the butler who’d come with them from Nettleton Manor. ‘I wasn’t aware we knew any dukes. Ned? Do we? Know this duke?’

Uncle Ned lowered his newspaper. ‘Theakstone? Ah. Come to think of it, he’s our landlord. Probably come about some problem over the lease, or something of that nature. Show him to the study, Babbage, and I will attend him there.’

Babbage cleared his throat apologetically. ‘His Grace gave me to believe he wished to speak to Miss Sofia, my lord.’

Uncle Ned and Aunt Agnes both turned to gape at her. It was Uncle Ned who recovered first. ‘Nonsense! Must be some mistake. Sofia don’t know any dukes. Keep too close a watch on her, don’t you, Agnes? Where would she have met him? Eh?’

‘Nowhere,’ said Aunt Agnes decisively. ‘I can assure you of that.’

And so could Sofia, if he’d bothered to ask her. But that was not his way. Sofia was not, as he was so fond of saying, his niece. She was pretty sure he didn’t begrudge her house room. It was just that he held the firm conviction that raising girl children was a woman’s work. He’d said so, the very first day she’d reached Nettleton Manor, bedraggled and woebegone and half-sure they, too, were going to pass her on to yet another set of strangers. It had been the first time he and Aunt Agnes had discussed her as though she wasn’t even in the room. In the years that followed, they’d fallen into the habit of doing it on what felt like a regular basis.

Babbage cleared his throat, reminding them all, tactfully, that they were keeping a duke kicking his heels in the hallway. Not that she could account for a man claiming to be a duke turning up and asking after her. As far as she was aware, she’d never met a duke in her life.

‘Yes, yes, show him in here, then,’ said Uncle Ned impatiently. ‘Must be some mistake. Get it cleared up in a trice, I dare say. Ah, good morning,’ he said, tossing his newspaper aside and getting to his feet to greet the man who strolled in. As though he owned the place. Which was what he was claiming, though he couldn’t possibly. For this was no duke. This was the waiter from the evening of the fireworks that had gone wrong.

The waiter nodded to her uncle, then made straight for her, his ferocious brows lowering into an expression of concern.

‘Your poor face,’ he said, stretching out a hand as though he would have stroked her black eye, only withdrawing it at the very last moment, as though suddenly recollecting his manners.

But she felt as though he’d touched her all the same. Which gave her a very odd feeling. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked as though they had wanted to touch her with affection. Or concern. Certainly not Aunt Agnes. On first seeing Sofia, she’d shuddered with revulsion before sending her off to be stripped and scrubbed clean by a very junior housemaid. And had held her at arm’s length ever since.

‘Try to remember you are a lady born,’ was her most frequent refrain. Which had swiftly supplanted her first maxim: ‘You are in England now and must act accordingly.’

Although last night, after seeing Sofia’s ruined gown and not seeing Betty’s cloak, she’d bombarded Sofia with just about her entire arsenal of verbal weaponry. And this morning, when she’d arrived at the breakfast table sporting a black eye, far from reaching out to her the way this man had just done, she’d raised her hand to her own brow. ‘Just like your father,’ she’d moaned. ‘Never happier than when he was neck deep in mischief.’

Which was most unfair. Sofia had worked so hard to become a Proper English Young Lady that nowadays everyone within ten miles of Nettleton Manor thought she was a dead bore.

‘Has your niece,’ said the waiter who was masquerading as a duke, ‘received medical attention since the night of the bonfire?’ He rounded on her uncle, looking distinctly annoyed.

‘It is only a few bruises and scratches, nothing more,’ said Aunt Agnes in self-defence.

He then raised one of those eyebrows towards her aunt in a way that would have shrivelled Sofia, had it been directed at her.

For a moment, Sofia thought about telling Aunt Agnes that there was no need to quail under the force of those eyebrows. They might look lethal, but they adorned the forehead of a mere waiter. Not a duke.

However, it wasn’t often that anyone took her part against her uncle and aunt. And so she remained silent while Aunt Agnes flushed and began to stammer excuses.

‘She sees a doctor regularly. She is here for her health, after all. For the sea bathing.’

‘Her health?’ His voice dripped with such disdain even Sofia could see how he could pass for a duke. ‘Then what was she doing out at night, in the chill air?’

‘It’s all moonshine, the notion that Sofia is invalidish,’ broke in Uncle Ned. ‘This trip to the seaside is all down to my wife’s brother putting a lot of ridiculous ideas into their heads.’

Sofia blushed and hung her head, since Uncle Ned was closer to stating the truth than he knew. And she still felt a bit guilty about the way her Uncle Barty had manipulated them into bringing her here.

‘What you need,’ he’d said, the last time he’d been over to visit her, ‘is to get away from this devilish dull backwater and meet some people other than rustics. Go about a bit. Attend some dances. That will put the roses back into your cheeks,’ he’d prophesied. And then he’d proceeded to harangue his sister for neglecting Sofia to such good effect that they’d all decamped to the fashionable seaside town of Burslem Bay, to see if a course of sea bathing might help restore her appetite, so that she’d regain the weight she’d lost over winter.

‘Now, Ned, that isn’t fair,’ said Aunt Agnes. ‘Poor Sofia was wasting away...’

Uncle Ned snorted. ‘You wouldn’t have dreamed of spending all this money on a cottage by the sea if your pestilential brother hadn’t started throwing his weight around.’

‘But he is as much her guardian as either of us, Ned. Of course he thinks he has a say in her welfare...’

Sofia was beginning to curl up with embarrassment. It was bad enough when they argued about her as if she wasn’t there. But to do so in front of a stranger, as well?

The so-called Duke gave the bickering couple another look of disdain, before sauntering across the room and taking the chair next to hers.

‘You must wish to know how Mrs Pagett is faring,’ he said.

‘Mrs Pagett?’ Lord, but her voice had come out all squeaky. But then he was a bit overwhelming, up close. He exuded so much confidence and vitality.

Just as if he really was a duke.

‘The woman whose aid you went to when her dress caught fire.’

‘Oh, yes, thank you! How is she? Did you find a doctor for her—?’

‘Sofia, really,’ her aunt interrupted, roused from her quarrel with Uncle Ned by the sound of Sofia actually conducting a conversation which she was not supervising. ‘Remember your manners. Please forgive her, Your Grace. I am sure she does not mean to be so impertinent, peppering you with questions like that.’

‘Not at all,’ said the waiter-Duke. ‘She is merely expressing a very feminine curiosity and concern for someone whose unfortunate accident has clearly shocked her very much.’

Sofia promptly decided she liked him, no matter whether he was a waiter or a duke, or something else entirely. For nobody, apart from Uncle Barty on the rare occasions he could be bothered to visit, had ever defended her from one of her aunt’s criticisms, not to her face like that. Not in all the years she’d been living under her roof. The locals had all, without exception, expressed sympathy upon hearing that Lady Norborough had taken in the orphaned offspring of her scapegrace younger brother. And prophesied that she’d have her hands full taming the result of such a scandalous match as he’d made.

Having delivered his set-down, the waiter who claimed to be a duke turned back to Sofia. ‘My personal physician is overseeing her treatment. He thought it best to install a nurse in her home, for day-to-day care. He informs me that her injuries are not so severe as you might suppose, given the spectacle she made when her gown caught fire. The damage was confined mostly to her clothes and the lower part of her legs, particularly her right leg. And her hands when she tried to beat out the flames. There is some blistering about the face and the loss of some hair, but I am informed it will grow back. Her hair, that is.’

Sofia shuddered. ‘Oh, how awful. The poor woman. But thank goodness you got to her so quickly.’

He dipped his head in acknowledgement of the part he’d played in Mrs Pagett’s drama.

‘How I wish... I mean, is there anything I can do?’

‘Of course there is nothing you can do, you foolish girl,’ said Aunt Agnes. ‘You are not a doctor. I cannot think how you came to be mixed up in such a squalid scene in the first place.’

Nor had Sofia, to start with. But as she’d lain in bed the night before, she’d remembered how her papa had always used to say she was full of pluck. That nobody nowadays thought so stemmed, she suspected, from the horrible events surrounding her papa’s death. By the time she reached Nettleton Manor, she’d been so relieved to finally find refuge that she’d done her utmost to fit in. It had taken a couple of years before she’d been able to stop worrying that her newly discovered family were not going to throw her out if she displeased them. And by then, the habit of behaving with extreme caution had taken deep root.

She still swam, though, and climbed trees, whenever she was sure nobody would find out. And last night, when she’d seen that lady in such awful trouble, she hadn’t stopped to think about the consequences. She’d just run to help.

While all this was flashing through Sofia’s mind, the Duke had turned to give Aunt Agnes a really blistering look. ‘Your niece appears to have a very compassionate nature, Lady Norborough. I am sure her enquiries as to what she could do extended only to visiting to offer comfort, or something of that sort.’ He turned back to Sofia. ‘Am I correct?’

‘Well, no... I mean, I am sure I would not be permitted to actually visit,’ she said with regret, darting an anxious glance in her aunt’s direction. Visiting the lower orders was one of the things she said Sofia was to avoid at all costs, considering the company she’d kept in her earliest years. ‘But I did wonder if I could contribute, financially, towards her care...’

‘Now just a minute...’ This time it was Uncle Ned who was raising an objection.

‘It does your niece credit,’ said the Duke. ‘However, in this instance, Miss Underwood,’ he said, turning to her and gentling his tone, ‘the care of Mrs Pagett will be charged to the committee who organised the event. After all, they were responsible for the safety of all those who attended the supper and fireworks. Whatever it was that caused about two-thirds of them to go off simultaneously, instead of one at a time, there can be no doubt about that.’

He got to his feet and looked at her aunt and uncle for a moment or two in the kind of silence that had them all holding their breath.

‘I shall call to take your niece for an airing in my carriage, tomorrow. Be ready,’ he said, turning to her, ‘at three.’

Chapter Three

For the second time in as many days, Oliver drew his curricle up outside Miss Underwood’s lodgings, wondering why on earth he was altering his busy schedule to squeeze in a meeting with her. He’d had no intention of doing more than assuring himself she was recovering properly from the incident at the fireworks when he’d called the day before. He certainly hadn’t intended to invite her out for a drive.

But then her aunt and uncle had talked over her so dismissively. Which was so unjust, given the bravery she’d shown in rushing to Mrs Pagett’s help.

He hadn’t liked the way her uncle had dragged her away that night.

And he hadn’t liked the way they’d both berated her for behaviour that to him seemed compassionate and caring.

That was what had prompted him to invite her to drive with him this afternoon—the chance to detach her from their overbearing, disapproving presence, so that he could talk to her freely. About Mrs Pagett.

It had nothing to do with the flare of attraction he’d felt when he’d seen her sitting in that drawing room, in full sunlight. He met dozens of pretty girls all the time. She was nothing out of the ordinary. It was just that he had a preference for slim brunettes with brown eyes, that was all. The fact that he’d seen her legs through her ripped gown had probably stoked the more primitive side of his nature, too. He had no need to worry that he was developing an unhealthy interest in her.

In fact, by the time he’d driven her through the town and along the seafront he was bound to have discovered some flaw in her personality which would enable him to relegate her to the status of passing fancy.

He tossed the reins to his groom, pressing his lips into a firm, determined line. The girl he’d seen at the fireworks display probably didn’t exist outside his imagination, anyway. She certainly hadn’t put in an appearance in her aunt’s drawing room. That girl had been all polite propriety and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth missishness. Even when he’d spoken to her directly, he’d gained the impression she wanted to shrink into the sofa cushions and disappear from view. If he’d come across that Miss Underwood at a ball or a supper party, he wouldn’t have spared her a second thought. He certainly wouldn’t have drifted off to sleep with a vision of her, crouching on the ground, holding Mrs Pagett’s hand in his mind. Or gone on to dream about joining her on the ground and giving in to the temptation to run his hand through the rips in her skirts to find the silken skin of her calves.

He mounted the front steps and rapped on the door. Putting this inconvenient fascination for Miss Underwood to bed was what he would accomplish this afternoon. And then he could return to his well-ordered existence where his every move was dictated by duty, honour and reason.

Not emotion or desire.

* * *

‘Here he is!’ Aunt Agnes was practically jumping up and down on the spot. She’d spent all morning deciding what to wear. If there had been time, she would have gone out and purchased an entirely new carriage dress and bonnet. ‘Oh!’ She clapped her hands to her chest. ‘He has come in the most ridiculous vehicle. There can hardly be room for us both in it. I hope he doesn’t intend...’ She whirled round to look at Sofia with narrowed eyes. ‘It is the height of impropriety to go driving, alone, with a single gentleman to whom you are not related.’

‘You had better inform him of that fact when he comes in,’ said Sofia, tongue in cheek.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! As if he needs telling. He must have changed his mind about the outing, that is what it is,’ she said, trotting over to the mirror and fluffing her hair into place. ‘At least he is gracious enough to come and inform us.’ She plopped herself down and arranged her skirts only a moment before Babbage came to announce their visitor.

The Duke strode in on the tail end of the butler’s words. He glanced at Sofia, where she was sitting on the sofa, Snowball next to her with her muzzle on her lap. ‘Good afternoon, ladies,’ he said, bowing to each of them. ‘Are you not ready?’ He shot a rather irritated glance at Sofia. ‘I did specify three o’clock and I do not wish to keep my horses standing.’

‘Oh, but we thought you must have changed your mind,’ said Aunt Agnes.

He whirled on her. ‘Why should you think any such thing? Besides, if I had done so I should have sent a note. Well?’ He turned to Sofia again.

‘I have only to don my pelisse and bonnet,’ she said, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on his and pretending not to notice the frantic, yet furtive, way Aunt Agnes was trying to attract her attention. If she wanted to forbid her from going out with him unchaperoned, then she should jolly well have told him that it was highly improper behaviour the moment he’d suggested it. Sofia had never been invited to go out for a drive with a gentleman to whom she was not related. And she had no intention of letting such a treat slip through her fingers. Hadn’t she promised herself, when Uncle Ned had finally agreed to bring her to the seaside, that she was going to make the most of every opportunity for enjoyment that came her way? And start putting the past behind her?

‘Well, hurry along, then,’ said her means of escaping her aunt and uncle for an hour or so.

Sofia hurried into the hall and into her pelisse and bonnet. Snowball, who recognised these signs of human behaviour as the prelude to going for a walk, ran around and around in circles, almost tripping the Duke when he came into the hallway himself.

‘Here, Snowball,’ said Sofia, bending down to scoop her dog up into her arms. ‘You do not mind me bringing her along, do you?’ Belatedly, she considered that the Duke might not like to have an animal of such dubious heritage perched up on the lap of the lady he was about to parade about the lanes in his curricle. A lady, moreover, who was sporting a rather spectacular black eye.

The Duke looked at the wriggling bundle of fluff in Sofia’s arms, then looked into her face, as though his thoughts were following the same path her own had just wandered down. ‘Not at all,’ he said with chilling politeness. ‘Though would the creature not prefer to take a walk? With a footman?’

‘Oh, I shall take Snowball out again later for exercise,’ she said, airily ignoring his hint. ‘This carriage ride is just an extra treat for her. She absolutely loves carriage rides.’

‘Indeed,’ he said drily, eyeing Babbage in such a way that the butler went and opened the front door for them to exit.

‘Oh, yes, you should have seen her during our trip here,’ she said, making her way down the front steps. ‘She kept her nose to the door the entire time, breathing in all the smells wafting in with her eyes half-shut as though she was in some sort of doggy heaven.’

‘Hmmph. Dogs do tend to experience life through their noses,’ he conceded as he handed her up on to the seat of the curricle. As he went around to the other side to climb in, Sofia put Snowball down right in the middle of the bench seat. The Duke paused in the act of taking his own seat and raised his left eyebrow.

‘So this little bundle of fluff is in reality the chaperon I took such pains to exclude from our outing.’

‘A girl cannot be too careful with her reputation,’ she said, parroting one of her aunt’s most frequent homilies.

‘I have a groom to stand up behind, naturally. However,’ he said, settling into the seat and taking the reins, ‘you are to be commended for not attempting to take advantage of the situation.’

‘Take advantage? Whatever do you mean?’

‘Most females in your position,’ he said, nodding to the groom to let go of the horses’ heads, ‘would be trying to take hold of my arm under the pretence of being afraid of the motion of the vehicle.’

‘We haven’t set out yet,’ she said, as he flicked the reins and set it in motion. ‘That is,’ she hastily amended as the groom leapt nimbly up behind, ‘there is a little rail here by my side which I can hang on to should you prove to be a careless driver.’

Sofia could tell the Duke did not like the implication that she might dislike the manner of his driving by the way his jaw clenched, but fortunately before either of them could pursue that topic any further, Snowball caught sight of a cat sitting on the window ledge of one of the houses they were passing and let out a loud bark.

‘Hush, Snowball,’ said Sofia, tapping the dog’s nose firmly with two fingers to reinforce the command.

The Duke snorted. ‘You cannot expect any self-respecting dog not to bark at a cat.’

‘On the contrary. I have trained Snowball to be silent when required.’ She’d had to. Aunt Agnes had at first objected so strongly to having the animal in the house that she’d spent hours and hours training her dog into total obedience. ‘Now that I have given the command she will not bark again until I give her leave, I promise you.’

‘A remarkable animal, then,’ he said, glancing down at Snowball. ‘A good deal of poodle in the family, I take it?’

‘Yes, I think so. I have to have her trimmed regularly or she becomes completely circular in appearance. Like a snowball on legs, in fact.’

‘Ah, hence the name.’

‘No, when she was a pup, she just looked like a little furry snowball. And it was Christmas. The name just came to me.’

‘Her tail has the look of a spaniel, though.’

‘Yes, her mother was definitely a spaniel. It was the father who...’

Oh, lord, why had she never seen it before? That was why Jack had given her the puppy. Because she was of mixed breed. It had been a cruel joke, referencing Sofia’s own background.

Was that why Aunt Agnes had been so cross with him? It certainly explained why her aunt had not shown any great aversion to Snowball after those first few fraught minutes when she’d scolded Jack for being so thoughtless. Why she’d never once threatened to have the dog destroyed, or sold, no matter how many times Sofia had returned from walks dripping wet or covered in mud. She’d scolded her, yes. Said she despaired of ever making a Proper Lady of her. But never, ever threatened to part her from the pet she’d fallen in love with at first sight.

In rather the same way she’d fallen for Jack.

And later, when he’d told her that he’d taken one look at Springer’s latest litter and thought of her, she’d assumed he’d meant that he’d noticed how lonely and out of place she still felt in England and had wanted to give her something of her very own, to love her and be with her always.

But all the time he’d been making fun of her mixed parentage.

How...beastly of him. How cruel.

And how stupid of her not to have seen it.

The Duke cleared his throat. ‘I did not bring you out here to talk about dogs, however.’

‘No, of course not,’ she said, distractedly running her fingers over Snowball’s crest. In spite of suddenly understanding what Jack had meant the dog to be, she loved her just the same. Snowball was loyal and loving, obedient and clever. ‘Good girl, Snowball,’ she said.

‘Are you feeling quite well? You seem a little distracted.’

Well, it wasn’t every day a girl was on the receiving end of such an epiphany. Not that she was going to let it have the devastating effect upon her that the last one she’d had about Jack had done. No, for this was more in the nature of a deepening of a truth she’d already learned.

That Jack was a vile, vile person. And not the romantic hero of her girlish dreams. At all. Oh, yes, he might have told his sisters not to be so beastly to her whenever he caught them out in some petty act of spite. But she’d been mistaken in thinking his motives were the slightest bit chivalrous. It was far more to do with how much he disliked them.

‘Miss Underwood?’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon. I was wool-gathering.’ On receipt of this admission, the Duke’s lips thinned and his ferocious brows drew down until they almost met one another over the great beak of his nose. Clearly he did not appreciate women wool-gathering when he’d done them the signal honour of taking them up in his curricle. And that after casting aspersions upon his prowess as a driver! ‘That is, I was wondering how best to answer your question, without...that is, I hardly know you.’

‘I do not wish to hear any details of your ailments,’ he snapped.

‘No, I don’t suppose you do.’ After all, nobody else ever did. All she’d had to do that day she’d come home from learning exactly what Jack thought of her was claim to have a headache and feel sick—which was the perfect truth—and they’d left her alone in her room for days.

‘I am assuming that it is on account of your poor health that you did not appear in London this spring.’

‘What? I mean, why should you have thought I would be in London?’

‘To make your debut. I should have thought... I mean, you look to be of an age to make a come-out. And your uncle is the Earl of Tadcaster, is he not?’

‘Yes...’ Though nobody would think so to look at her today, in one of her cousins’ cast-off walking dresses, a bonnet that did nothing to disguise her black eye and a dog of indeterminate heritage sitting at her side. Certainly not the couple of scarlet-jacketed officers who were loitering on the corner where the Duke was slowing down to take the turn down to the seafront.

‘To be honest,’ she said, turning to look at his profile so that she could pretend she hadn’t seen the scornful looks directed at her by those officers, ‘Aunt Agnes did use my poor health as a pretext for not taking me to London this year.’

‘But not former years?’ He glanced down at her, as though assessing her age. ‘You look as though you should have made your debut some time since.’

She gasped at his effrontery.

‘Why has the Countess of Tadcaster not given you a court presentation then? She is surely a most suitable person to do so.’

Had he been investigating her background? Or was he just one of those people who knew the intricate web of families that made up the haut ton so well that the few casual references to her family, made by her uncle and aunt, had been enough to place her exactly?

‘Well, when my father first died, Uncle Barty was a bachelor, so everyone thought it more appropriate for his sister to take me in charge, especially since she already had two daughters.’ She’d heard Uncle Barty say as much to the subaltern whose invidious task it had been to convey her to the head of her family. And heard the subaltern subsequently repeat the message to Aunt Agnes. ‘And then last spring, when I might have made my debut, Lady Tadcaster was...er...in a delicate condition.’

‘Ah, yes. She presented the Earl of Tadcaster with an heir during the summer months, did she not? It escaped my mind. And this year, you were too ill to endure the rigours of a Season...’

‘I most certainly was not!’

He crooked one of his eyebrows at her. She pondered the fact that they could crook. They were remarkably mobile, considering that in their resting state they relaxed back into a completely straight line. Not that relaxed was really the correct word to apply to brows which managed to look so aggressive even when they were perfectly still. Or when he was staring at her, pointedly.

She sighed. ‘I can see you are going to carry on badgering me until I tell you the truth which is...well, over the winter months, I did fall ill.’ Or perhaps it was more truthful to say she’d made herself ill. So stupidly.

It had started with hearing Jack and his friend discussing her in such derogatory terms, while she’d been crouching, hidden, underneath the jetty on which they’d been standing.

‘Sorry, I’ll have to spend a bit of time dancing attendance on the heiress,’ Jack had apologised to his friend, ‘since my family expect me to marry her. But don’t worry, it won’t take much time out of the vacation. I’ll only have to toss her the bone of a few moments of idle chat, a smile and a compliment or two and she’ll be content to chew on it for days on end, like the mongrel bitch she is.’

‘Don’t sound as if you like her much, old man,’ the friend had said, sounding almost as shocked as she’d felt.

‘Like her?’ Jack had sounded offended. ‘She’s as dull as ditch water and about as attractive.’

She wasn’t sure how she’d managed to stumble home after hearing that. And she’d shut herself in her room unable to bear the thought of facing anyone, knowing what she knew. Especially not with eyes red from weeping. After only a few days, during which she’d totally lost her appetite as well, she had started to look so ill they’d finally sent for a doctor, who’d bled her and cupped her until she really was so weak that when one of the housemaids had sneezed while lighting the fire, Sofia had caught the infection which had developed into a fully fledged inflammation of the lungs.

‘Coming to the seaside was supposed to have a tonic effect upon me,’ she said wistfully, recalling her Uncle Barty’s last visit to Nettleton Manor.

‘Not surprised you are fading away,’ he’d said, shaking his head. ‘Stuck out here with no company but such as that dolt my sister married and his infernal relatives. What you want is to get some sea air and go to some assemblies where you can dance with a few men in scarlet coats, eh, what? Stroll along the promenade and flirt with a beau or two.’

That had sounded good. Sea bathing. And having some beaux. That would show Jack that there were men who found her interesting. Pretty even. That would prove she was not pining away. Not that he had the slightest idea his attitude was at the root of her illness. She hadn’t told anybody what she’d overheard. It would have been too humiliating. And anyway, what would have been the point?

She suspected that Uncle Barty had only made the suggestion to cause trouble. He never left Nettleton Manor until he’d practically come to blows with Uncle Ned about something—the way he was managing Sofia’s fortune, or his treatment of Aunt Agnes, both were frequent grist to his mill. Usually she did her best to stay out of the quarrels which erupted on the slightest pretext. Especially if they concerned her. But during that last visit, she’d seen that he was the one person who could give her the answers to all the questions she’d been reluctant to ask Aunt Agnes for fear of offending her.

‘Is it a lot, the money that will come to me when I marry?’ she’d asked him, linking her arm through his as they’d strolled down to the rose garden.

‘Good Lord, yes. You’ll be rich enough to buy an...that is, yes—yes, it is.’

She’d begun to suspect as much, upon hearing how keen it had made Jack to marry her, in spite of what he thought of her. She’d never truly felt like an heiress before that day under the jetty in spite of hearing the word bandied about. In fact, she’d felt far more like a charity case, considering the way her cousins passed down their gowns from the previous Season to her each year when they went to buy new ones.

‘And what will happen to it if I don’t marry,’ she’d wondered aloud, ‘or if I die?’

‘You ain’t going to die, my girl, so stop thinking along those lines.’

‘But if I did?’

‘Well, in such a case, it would all go back to your mother’s family, where it came from,’ he’d said. Just like that. His honesty had stunned her, for everyone else had said, in the days when she’d still tried to talk about her parents, that it was better to let sleeping dogs lie.

‘You...you know how to contact them, then?’

‘Of course I do,’ he’d said with a puzzled frown. ‘Why should you think anything else?’

‘But I thought that all contact was lost when...when Mama married Papa.’

‘Ah. Well, it was given out that was the case. On account of them being Catholic and your father refusing to allow you to be brought up in that religion. They had to appear to cut their daughter out of their lives. And you, as the offspring.’

‘Mama was a Catholic?’

‘What did you think she was?’

‘Well, I don’t know. I was so little when she died. Papa could not bear to talk of her and Aunt and Uncle won’t have her name mentioned. So I thought...well, the only thing I did hear was that she was some sort of...trader.’ The only words used to describe her mother’s origins had actually been of such a derogatory variety that Sofia had been half-afraid to find out any more.

‘No, no, very good sort of people, the Perestrellos. They do own vineyards and their wine graces the tables of the wealthy all over the world. But they come from aristocratic stock. The mismatch was one of religion, not class. Unless you consider her race, which some do, the fools.’

Fools like Jack. Who’d always appeared to be sympathetic to her for being of what he called mixed heritage.

‘And if I never marry,’ she’d persisted, determined to get the full facts. ‘What then?’

‘Not marry? Pretty little thing like you?’ He’d pinched her chin. ‘Course you’ll marry. Fellers’ll be queuing up to court you.’

‘No, but seriously, Uncle Barty, I really want to know. Will I ever be able to have it? Just for myself? To do with as I please?’

‘Well, if you reach the age of thirty without getting hitched, then, yes.’

Thirty? She was going to have to wait another eight years before the law considered her fit to take charge of her own money?

‘Can’t imagine why nobody has explained it all to you,’ Uncle Barty had said with a frown. ‘Nor why you couldn’t have just asked your Uncle Ned...no, actually,’ he’d said, making a motion with his hand as though swatting away a pesky fly, ‘I can see exactly why you couldn’t talk to that dolt. But I shall talk to him, never fear. I mean to tell him how shocked I am by your appearance. Inform him that he clearly hasn’t been taking proper care of you. That I very much fear you will fade away altogether if they don’t take steps to stop this decline.’ He’d chuckled with glee at the prospect of gaining another rod with which to beat his brother-in-law.

But this time, she hadn’t crept up to her room to hide until the worst had blown over. Instead she’d gone back inside with Uncle Barty and said, albeit rather timidly, that she rather liked the sound of spending some time at the seaside, if nobody would mind too much. And since it had been the first thing she’d shown any interest in since well before Christmas, Uncle Ned had grudgingly conceded that for once Uncle Barty might have the right of it.

And so here she was, bowling along the seafront, in a curricle driven by a duke, no less, with the wind whipping her curls from her bonnet.

Hah! That would show Jack when he found out, which he was bound to do because Uncle Ned or Aunt Agnes were sure to inform him.

Her lips curved into a smile.

She could hardly wait.

Chapter Four

Oliver watched a little smile curve her lips and wondered what had put it there. For the first time in his life, he found himself striving to think of some topic that would keep a woman’s mind focused exclusively on what he had to say and not on whatever stray thought might pop into her head next.

‘I separated you from your relatives so that we may speak freely about Mrs Pagett,’ he bit out. It had the effect he’d hoped for since she turned inquisitive brown eyes up at him.

‘Oh, yes. Of course. How does she do? But before we get on to that, there is something I need to say first. I am sorry for speaking to you the way I did.’

‘What way was that?’

‘Well, when I first saw you. I ordered you about. You did look very offended, when I look back on it. I don’t suppose many people speak to you that way, do they? Only, the thing is, you see, I thought you were a waiter. You dressed the way the man who served at our table was dressed.’

‘That night, I was acting as a waiter.’

‘Acting? Whatever for?’

‘It was decided...that is, the committee who organised the event to celebrate the Peace with France felt that, um, it would be a good idea for men such as myself to wait on the lower orders.’

‘You mean,’ she asked, wide-eyed, ‘that all the waiters were dukes?’

‘No. I mean, all the waiters hailed from the better families about these parts.’

‘That is very radical.’

‘You disapprove? You think men of my rank should always stand on their dignity?’ His father would certainly never have demeaned himself by waiting at table. It was one of the factors that had made the experience so very satisfying, showing the world that he was nothing like the man who’d sired him.

‘Disapprove? Oh, no. I was just a bit surprised, that is all. Was it...a sort of...oh, I forgot, I’m not supposed to pepper you with questions, am I?’

Normally, he would agree. But Miss Underwood looked so contrite and the way she’d stopped before actually asking her question had piqued his interest.

‘Asking me one question is hardly peppering me with them, is it? What did you wish to know?’

‘Oh.’ She darted him a look of relief. ‘Well, I just wondered if the act had some sort of religious significance. You know, like...when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet.’

He winced. ‘Nothing so noble,’ he confessed. ‘The decision was taken for purely practical purposes. You see, what with the amount of ale supplied, there were fears from some quarters that there might be...unruliness. That it might all end in disaster.’

‘Well, it did.’

‘Yes, and I have a feeling that the ale, or some other spirituous liquor, may have played a part in it. There can be no other reason for the fireworks to have all gone up at once like that.’

‘Unless someone did it deliberately.’

That was the second time someone had raised suspicions about the causes of the explosion. ‘Why would anyone wish to do anything of the sort?’ He wondered if he’d been right to so quickly dismiss the rumours that had reached Perceval’s ears about a shadowy figure loitering behind the scaffolding not long before the fireworks display had started. He shook his head. ‘The town council put on an event for the benefit of the townspeople, paid for by the local landowners.’

‘We had to pay for our tickets.’

‘You are not locals. Those holidaying in the area were allowed to attend, if they would subscribe. That seemed fair.’

‘I suppose it was,’ she conceded. ‘Mrs Pagett still got hurt, though. And, oh, yes, you were going to tell me how she does.’

‘I fear her road to recovery may be a long one. Although this one,’ he said in disbelief, ‘is not.’

He clearly hadn’t been paying enough attention to the route along which he’d been driving because they were at the end of Marine View already. And he hadn’t said the half of what he’d meant to say to her.

‘Do you attend the assembly,’ he asked her as he brought the curricle to a halt at the foot of her front steps, ‘at the Marlborough Hotel this evening?’

‘Oh, no, the very idea!’ Sofia indicated the bruising on her face with a wry smile. ‘I could not possibly go about looking like this.’

‘Your view, or your aunt’s? No, you need not bother to reply. I believe you would be bold enough to attempt anything, without giving a rap what anyone else were to say of you.’

* * *

Sofia’s heart skipped a beat. Once upon a time, her papa had praised her for being full of pluck. But her aunt had done her best to suppress that side of her. She’d warned Sofia that, because of her background, she needed to be much more careful in her behaviour than most young ladies. And, determined to please her, she’d done her utmost to stop behaving like a ‘hoyden’—she’d curbed her language and followed all the rules, no matter how strange she’d found them.

She’d ended up so repressed that nowadays, in company, she didn’t really speak unless she was spoken to, but was more likely to sit quietly in a corner doing embroidery. The only time she allowed her deepest, truest self to emerge was when she was out walking Snowball, deep in the woods, where nobody else was about.

She’d become the sort of girl who cared so much what people thought of her and might say about her that they all found her as dull as ditch water.

But this man did not believe so. He’d seen something in her that nobody else had seen for years. And in doing so, he had reminded her of who she’d once been. Before she’d started trying so desperately to please the only people who’d been willing to take her in.

She turned to observe his expression. He looked annoyed. But then those eyebrows made him look slightly annoyed all the time. And why should she wish to know whether his observation was meant as a reproof or a compliment, anyway?

And yet, somehow, it did matter.

Perhaps because if there was one person who liked the real her, then she might find the courage to be herself, instead of the pattern card of virtue her aunt had tried to make her into. The version of herself that nobody much liked, least of all herself.

‘In that case,’ he bit out crisply, ‘I shall have to take you out for a drive again tomorrow.’

‘What? I mean, why? I mean, I’m sure that is very kind of you—’

He shook his head. ‘I am not kind, Miss Underwood. I will take you for another drive because I have not had the time today to say all I wished to say to you,’ he said irritably. ‘And because it would be impossible to have any meaningful conversation in the confines of that house.’ He glared up at the drawing-room window, through which Sofia could make out the outline of her aunt through the net curtains.

Well, in that she could agree with him. She had never had a single conversation within her aunt’s hearing that had been truly meaningful. Or in which she had dared to express her own opinions. At least, not after the first month or so of living with her, by which time she’d discovered that her manners had more in common with the sort of women who followed the drum than a Proper Young Lady.

The groom had now reached the horses’ heads, so the Duke climbed down and came round to help Sofia down. Since it was far too high for her little dog to jump down, she handed Snowball to the Duke. He received the bundle of fluff with astonishment, before bending to deposit her on the pavement with a faint grimace of distaste, though he’d wiped it from his countenance before straightening up to extend his arm to Sofia.

‘I cannot think what you can possibly have to say to me,’ she said, glancing nervously at the drawing-room window. She’d enjoyed her outing, but she was already bound to get a dreadful scold for going off with this man alone. How much worse would it be if Aunt Agnes discovered he meant to repeat the offence again the next day?

‘Mrs Pagett, if nothing else,’ he replied, following her line of sight. ‘There was not enough time to discuss...’ His brows drew into a heavy scowl. ‘Next time I call for you, do try to stick to the topic at hand rather than digressing so much.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ If he was so annoyed with her, why was he bothering to waste any more of his precious time with her? And why hadn’t he kept the conversation going in the direction he’d wanted, come to that? She’d felt as if he’d been positively encouraging her to ask questions. But then, what did she know about what dukes considered good conversation? What any single man thought, come to that. She’d only really mixed with people carefully selected by her aunt and uncle. And the only single man they’d thrown in her way had been Jack, Uncle Ned’s nephew.

The Duke of Theakstone escorted Sofia to her front door, but did not come in. For a moment, she resented the way he’d abandoned her entirely to the mercy of Aunt Agnes.

Although, she reflected as she took off her coat, even if he had come in it would only have postponed the confrontation, not spared her from it altogether. She had flouted her aunt’s wishes and escaped her strict scrutiny. There was nothing anyone, not even a duke, could do to prevent her aunt from lecturing her.

But she was not going to take it lying down like a...a doormat. She would do better to spike Aunt Agnes’s guns.

So she entered the drawing room in what she hoped looked like an apologetic manner.

‘I do hope you are not angry with me, Aunt Agnes,’ she said while her aunt was still drawing breath. ‘But the Duke of Theakstone is such a forceful man that when he told me to go and put on my coat, it felt like a direct order. And I didn’t know how to disobey him.’

Her aunt regarded her through narrowed eyes for a moment or two before appearing to accept Sofia’s explanation. But then, why wouldn’t she? Sofia had worked so hard to conform to her aunt’s exacting standards that for the last couple of years she’d behaved like a veritable milksop.

Until the day she’d heard Jack mocking her behaviour and she’d begun to wonder why she’d bothered. She could never be anything but the product of a slightly shocking marriage between an Englishman and a foreigner. A Catholic, to boot. And why should she try to shoehorn her personality into the mould her aunt and uncle deemed ‘proper’, when they were so intent on pushing her in Jack’s direction so that he could benefit from the money she would inherit?

Especially since it was the only reason he would consider her as a wife.

‘I will have to marry someone, some day,’ he’d said. ‘So why not her? She may be boring, but at least she’s biddable. In fact,’ he’d boasted, ‘she rather idolises me. I will only have to drop the handkerchief, you know, and she will go into raptures. And then all that lovely money of hers will be mine to spend as I wish. Once she’s breeding, I can leave her in the country and have some real fun.’ They’d both laughed, then, in a way that had turned her stomach.

Drop the handkerchief, indeed! He’d have to do more than drop a handkerchief. In fact, he could weave and embroider and hem a dozen handkerchiefs and it would make no difference. She was most categorically not going to marry Jack. Not now she knew what he really thought of her. Not now she knew he was the kind of man who’d marry a woman for her money, so he could go out and enjoy himself with other women. Because that was what that dirty laughter had been about. She’d spent the first ten years of her life with a father who was a serving soldier and he had most decidedly not lived like a monk once her mama had died. On the contrary, Sofia had lost count of the number of ladies who’d lived with them, ostensibly as nursemaids to her, but who always, always, shared her papa’s bed. Nobody, he’d told her, could replace her mama. She need never fear that he would ever call another woman his wife. But they needed somebody, didn’t they, to take care of them?

Take care of them? Hah! The moment she’d heard her papa was dead, Maria, his latest lady friend, had promptly ransacked their billet for anything of value before leaving to secure another ‘protector’.

Which was yet another reason, she sighed as she went to take her place on her usual chair, that she’d taken such pains to become whatever her aunt and uncle wanted her to become. She’d been so grateful they’d taken her in and told her she must consider Nettleton Manor her home, that she would have cut off all her hair and dyed her face blue if they’d so much as hinted it would guarantee her safety.

‘Did His Grace say something to upset you?’ asked Aunt Agnes with a slight frown.

‘Upset me? The Duke? No.’ On the contrary, he’d reminded her of who she really was. Or at least, who she had once been...and could become again if only she could summon the courage to stand up for herself a bit more.

‘Well, you look a trifle out of sorts.’

Which was the effect that thinking about Jack always had on her, these days.

‘What did you discuss, Sofia?’

‘Oh, Snowball, at first,’ said Sofia, bending to stroke her faithful dog’s ears. ‘And the state of my health and why I hadn’t had a court presentation,’ she said, darting a swift glance up at her aunt from under her eyelashes, to see what effect that statement might have.

‘Those are all rather personal questions. No wonder you are upset.’

‘Yes, but then dukes probably think they can say what they like, to whomever they wish.’ He’d certainly had no compunction about giving Aunt Agnes a set-down.

A smile tugged at her lips as she recalled the moment. Oh, but it had felt so good to have someone rush to her defence. Even if it had been totally unnecessary.

‘Why are you smiling like that?’

‘Oh, well, because he said he would be calling to take me out driving again tomorrow,’ she said as meekly as she could.

‘Without consulting me?’

Sofia shrugged. ‘He’s a duke. I don’t suppose he is in the habit of consulting anyone about anything before doing exactly as he wishes.’

‘And he wishes to take you out in his curricle again,’ said Aunt Agnes with amazement. As if there was no accounting for taste.

Rather than explain that he’d practically reprimanded her for obliging him to waste yet another afternoon on her, Sofia shrugged again.

And smiled.

Chapter Five

Oliver clenched his teeth, went down the steps, across the pavement and climbed back into the driver’s seat.

Dammit, the girl had done it again. Diverted him from his original plan. He’d known exactly what he’d wanted to say while tooling her round the lanes and along the seafront this afternoon. It shouldn’t have taken more than ten minutes. But somehow the time had slipped through his fingers like water and before he knew it he was drawing up outside her lodgings having barely touched on any of the items on his agenda. An agenda which he’d drawn up, he reflected as he flicked the whip to set his horses in motion, as a means of passing the time profitably during an outing he’d never meant to take in the first place.

He reached the end of Theakstone Crescent and turned left to take the road up the hill away from the bay, eyeing the neat rows of lodging houses with mixed feelings. Normally he felt a good deal of family pride at the visible proof of the way his grandfather had transformed the fortunes of the people living in what had merely been a mean little fishing village by developing Burslem Bay into a seaside resort. But today, there was also an undercurrent of disquiet. If his grandfather hadn’t wanted more for his guests to do at his nearby hunting box, when there was nothing left on the moors to shoot, Oliver might never have met Miss Underwood. She didn’t mix in the same social circles, even if her grandfather was an earl.

Which was probably why she had no idea how to behave, when presented to a duke. No other female would have handed him a dog, as though he was a mere footman. Or prattled on about the first thing that came into her head as though he was just anybody.

Although, to be fair, she had apologised once or twice when she felt she’d crossed a line. She appeared to know that she ought not to be so familiar with him, but simply couldn’t help herself.

He thought about that for several hundred yards.

And then recalled the slightly anxious way Miss Underwood had glanced up at the front window, as if she could sense somebody watching her.

His brows drew down as he went back further still, to the aunt’s reaction to his decree Miss Underwood was to go out driving with him, alone but for a groom. He’d been too annoyed when he’d deposited her on her front step to notice it, but now that he was going over the scene again, he could see that she’d been bracing herself for a scold.

He supposed he should have gone in with Miss Underwood, and... He drew in a sharp breath. Wasted even more of his afternoon on her behalf? No, it was as well he hadn’t felt the urge to shield her at the time.

It was bad enough that she made him act out of character as far as she had done. He held to that opinion until he was clear of the town. But once he’d reached the open moorland which surrounded Burslem House and there was no traffic upon which to focus his mind, he slowed his horses to a sedate trot, to give himself more time to work out what, precisely, it was about Miss Underwood that made him act so unlike himself, every single time they met.

It wasn’t as if she exerted herself, especially, as far as he could tell. She didn’t pout, or preen, or simper, or flutter her eyelashes at him, like the eligible debutantes with whom he’d been mingling during the Season. She didn’t hang on his every word, but spoke to him in a frank and open manner that was...actually, it was rather refreshing, in a way, to come across a female who didn’t appear to have any idea how to flirt.

Or no wish to flirt, as far as he could tell.

Or at least, not with him.

Her mind clearly kept wandering far from him. He’d almost been able to see the thoughts flitting across her face.

And he hadn’t liked it. Any other woman would have been hanging on to his every word. Making the most of the situation to...to sink her claws into him. Because every other female of his acquaintance knew he was on the hunt for a bride this Season.

Her slight air of distraction, of being untouchable, had made him want to do something to make her take notice of him. That was why he’d invited her to drive out with him again, he saw now. He wasn’t falling under some sort of subtle female spell. She’d simply roused a very basic male urge to hunt, to conquer, that was all it was.

His mouth relaxed from its grim line as he drove through the stone pillars marking the start of the drive up to Burslem House. Because he’d finally understood why he’d invited her to drive out with him again. He wasn’t going soft. On the contrary, her apparent lack of interest had piqued him; she seemed so unattainable that he was rising to the challenge she represented.

By the time he pulled the curricle to a halt before the front steps, he was no longer frowning. Because he’d formulated a plan.

His groom jumped down and went to take the horses’ heads. His butler opened the door before he’d reached the top step. His head footman took his hat, coat and gloves, and then an under-footman opened the door to his study where a third, more junior servant was engaged in pouring him out a tankard of fresh ale. Perceval, who’d been sitting at his own desk, working through a pile of correspondence, got to his feet, ready to attend him.

Oliver took a pull of his ale and let out a sigh as his life resumed its orderly pattern, with everyone knowing their duties and performing them like clockwork.

Except...

He put down his tankard. ‘I have been having some thoughts about the house party we are to hold at Theakstone Court next week.’

Perceval blinked.

Oliver turned and walked round his desk. He didn’t like the reminder that normally, at this point, he would have been asking his secretary if there were any urgent matters that had cropped up while he was out that needed attending to before they got down to the vast amount of estate matters to which he devoted this hour of the afternoon.

He sat down, steepled his fingers under his chin and leaned back in his chair. Now that he’d decided to take a bride, he’d worked out that the most obvious way to determine which of this Season’s crop of debutantes would best fit the role would be to invite a select few to his principal seat. During the week they would stay there, he would be able to observe them more closely than he’d been able to do in town.

Because, on the face of it, there was little to choose between the handful of the most eligible, in the eyes of society. They were all well born, with perfect society manners and the usual feminine accomplishments. Which was just the trouble. He had no idea what lay behind the façade of good manners...if anything at all. At times he suspected they might all be just empty shells.

At least Miss Underwood was transparent. She said whatever popped into her head without thinking. Even when she was thinking, he could practically see her thoughts flitting across that expressive little face. Some people, he reflected, might describe her as a breath of fresh air.

‘I wish you to add another family to the guest list.’

‘At this late date?’

Oliver raised one eyebrow in affront.

‘The staff at Theakstone Court are well able to make the necessary arrangements in time. Or they should be,’ he concluded repressively.

‘Your Grace has possibly not taken into consideration the time required to contact the family in question, as well as awaiting a response from them before notifying Mrs Manderville,’ said Perceval apologetically.

‘Are you implying that anyone would be likely to turn down an invitation to spend a week at Theakstone Court?’ Most people would give their right arm to receive such an honour. ‘Especially not once I inform them of what is at stake.’

‘Then you would wish me to send the invitations to the, ah, fortunate young lady and her family at the same time as I notify Mrs Manderville to make rooms ready for her family’s arrival?’

‘That would be the most efficient course to take,’ said Oliver, wondering why his secretary had not thought of that in the first place.

‘And the, ah, young lady in question?’ Perceval went to his desk and dipped his pen in his inkwell.

‘Miss Underwood. She is eligible,’ he added, when Perceval’s pen hovered in mid-air for long enough to let a drop of ink splash on to the blotter. ‘As you yourself pointed out, she is the niece to the present Earl of Tadcaster as well as being the granddaughter of the former holder of that title.’ And more to his taste, physically, than any of the other, better-born young ladies he’d considered taking as his Duchess. She might have many flaws, but at least he wouldn’t find it a chore to produce the necessary heir, were she to become the bride in his bed.

Nor was she likely to bore him, the way the other candidates for the position already did.

What was more, he’d already discovered that she had a compassionate nature. True, all the other girls on his list had a reputation for being caring, but he hadn’t actually seen any of them rushing to the aid of an injured woman of the lower classes. Nor had they any idea what it was like to be torn from the only family they’d known and sent to live among strangers. Which would mean she would know exactly how his own little daughter felt. The daughter whose existence he’d only recently discovered.

In fact, he couldn’t imagine why he’d only just decided to consider Miss Underwood as a potential bride. The others might fill the role of Duchess more smoothly, but she was exactly the kind of woman he’d hoped to find to become a mother for Livvy.

Yes, no matter what the rest of the ton might think of his choice, in many ways she was exactly what he was looking for.

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